


A House Isn't Always a Home

by iaso



Category: Naruto
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Families of Choice, Gen, Pain, Pre-Canon, Sannin-era, Self-Insert, an entire fic crammed into 5k words and told through snippets, kind of?, that thing where everybody you love is dead or left you so you settle on randos
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-24
Updated: 2020-04-24
Packaged: 2021-03-01 21:00:27
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,032
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23823466
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/iaso/pseuds/iaso
Summary: Tsunade tries to fight through fate. Spoiler: she doesn't do well. But, when she watches her world crumbles around her, she can do it with the self-satisfaction that she gave it a shot. SI/OC as Tsunade, told through snippets.
Comments: 18
Kudos: 425
Collections: A Collection of Beloved Inserts





	A House Isn't Always a Home

When the sky turns to grey and there's nothing to say

At the end of the day, I choose you.

* * *

It didn't hit her right away.

How could it? She was a baby, for fuck's sake—she knew three things: eat, sleep, shit. That was it. Oh, and her parents. Because baby-priorities are focused on survival.

No.

It hits her when she's nearly three years old, and she hears it cooed out loud, a phrase that unlocks her memories and comprehension, the key to her mind's safe. It's one of those janky keys, where it doesn't work the first time, or the second, or even the third, but the fourth time when you jiggle it in the lock just so and body-check the door for good measure.

The lights come on in her mind. Somebody's home, and it's not the right somebody, not at all.

"Ah, there you are! Our little Princess Tsunade!"

.

.

She lets it go.

Not, like, scrubs it from her memory, or anything. But she chooses to take this life for what it is and keeps living it. What else can she do? There's no backing out. She's the heir to the Senju clan—being a ninja is non-optional for her. This is her life; this is her future.

She doesn't let what she knows haunt her every waking moment. She doesn't spend days on end thinking about what she can do to make her life better, how she can save the world, any of that dumb shit. She's one person.

But where she can, small things change.

.

.

She hugs her brother every single time she sees him, no matter what.

.

.

She ends up hanging out more with Orochimaru, keeping him company and cultivating that friendship, than she expected to.

.

.

When the necklace is passed into her possession Tsunade takes it with a smile. She gives her thanks. And then she drops that thing into her jewelry box and leaves it there to _rot_.

.

.

"You're twelve today," Tsunade says, knocking her knuckles against Nawaki's head. "How d'ya feel?"

Nawaki giggles, swatting away her hand. "Cut it out, cut it out!"

They're together in the kitchen. Breakfast sizzles on the stove behind them, eggs and fish, while the radio drones on in the background. The day is warm, the air slipping in through the cracked backslider. The house feels alive.

It has the makings of a good day and she's letting it stay that way.

She grins. "Make me."

And never one to turn down a challenge, Nawaki ducks down and tries to sweep Tsunade's legs out from under her. Quick as a snake, Tsunade locks one of her feet to the ground and raises the other an inch off the ground, angled so that when Nawaki's leg comes at hers, it hits the unforgiving mountain that is her stance.

He bounces off of her like rubber. His balance goes and he ends up on the ground in a heap.

Tsunade bends at the waist, leaning over him, eyebrow raised. "How'd you think that go?"

"Heh…" Nawaki brushes his bangs out of his face. "'Bout that well."

"Uh-huh. Go wash up—breakfast is almost done. Then I'll take you out to buy your present."

"'Kay!"

.

.

The missive comes that night. Nawaki and his team are to leave for the frontlines.

He rushes out the door, pack on his back and his usual grin on his face, and she gives him a hug and a kiss on the forehead on his way out. She sits alone at the table, that night, his birthday cake untouched.

.

.

She gets the news two days later that he was killed.

.

.

It hurt when her parents died—she knew it would come, but she never knew _when_ , and so it hit her like a truck the way grief always does. But she got back up. There was more for her out in this vicious, awful world.

She had her team. She had her grandfather at the time. And she had her brother.

It somehow hurt more with Nawaki, even though she should have had herself prepared for it.

She knew. She _knew_. She knew when, she knew where, and she knew how. And she had told herself that maybe it would be different because he didn't get the necklace. That never happened. All she got was the message from Orochimaru.

And, you know? She wishes she'd given him the necklace because this time, she got nothing back of her little brother.

.

.

Tsunade takes the necklace out to her backyard and burns it.

.

.

Dan worms his way into her heart like it's an apple.

Bit by bit he chews away at it until he's carved a Dan-shaped hole, right through the middle.

He brings her flowers. He kisses her on the forehead, right where the diamond eventually lives, saying that when he does, he feels like he's kissing her soul. He holds her when she cries, rubbing circles in her back and not bothering to give her the shitty empty words that could never hope to encompass her hurt.

He respects her. He _loves_ her.

.

.

A year goes by, then two, then three.

"I love you," he says.

Without hesitation, she answers, "I love you, too."

.

.

"I can't do this, Dan."

Absently, Dan strikes his kunai against the sharpening block again and hums. "I've seen you run it—"

"No. I mean, I can't… I can't be with you."

His hand stills. His eyebrows knit together. "What?"

Covered head-to-toe in sweat as the hot summer sun bears down on her like she owes it a gambling debt, Tsunade lays on her back and stares up at the sky. "I think we need to break up."

"You _think_ we need to break up," he repeats. "Okay. Why?"

"One of us is going to die before this war ends and this way, it'll hurt a lot less if I'm the one left behind."

She can't say anything else; they're fine otherwise.

He's everything a boyfriend should be and if he's to be believed, she's everything he needs her to be, too. They fit like one of those puzzles, the twisted pieces of metal that seamlessly slip together despite appearances because they were made to fit like that.

And now, she's separating them without bothering to go through the tedious process of shifting the two pieces apart bit by bit, chunk by chunk, the way the puzzle is meant to be solved. She's just taking pliers and yanking them apart, a feat that might be impossible if not for her inhuman strength.

"Tsunade—"

"It's not up for debate, Dan. I love you. But I just… I can't be in a relationship right now."

"I…" Dan blinks. His hands fall limp into his lap. "Okay. That… okay."

She has no right to cry over this, but she feels the tears in her eyes and Dan stares at them, too stunned to wipe them away like he usually does. Tsunade's grateful for that—it would have made it harder, going out on a tender act like that.

She gets up and walks out of the training grounds. The whole way, she can feel Dan's eyes locked to the back of her head, and she just barely hears the sound of a training dummy being knocked off its post on her way out.

.

.

She lets him go.

It hurts like hell, but she does it.

The necklace was never cursed—it's her, and maybe if she separates herself, he'll be allowed to live. She has to hope. Dan _deserves_ to live. He has so many great things he can do, people he can help, lives he can save. Out of anybody in the village, he's the best Hokage material there is.

And if being away from her breaks this curse then so be it.

The heartache of a breakup is nothing compared to being hollowed out by grief again.

.

.

The war goes on and so does Tsunade's life.

Her team lives on the frontlines for the first few years of the war. When a situation needs crushing, they're sent in to tear down mountains and crack the earth beneath their feet like the walking natural disasters they are. The village's trump card. No team of ninja prove their equal, no _singular_ ninja proves their equal.

Until they're thrown at Hanzo.

There's fatigue, and then there's living out a deathmatch with a kage. But they do it. And finally, for the first time in her life, Tsunade understands how it feels to be a legend.

.

.

"We can't just kill them."

"No? Why not?"

"They're—for fuck's sake, they're just kids Orochimaru."

"Fine. Then we leave them here."

"Alone?"

"Yes, alone. We cannot simply take on three orphans as students, much less three orphans from an enemy village."

"Allow me to repeat myself: they're _kids_!"

"That makes no difference to me."

"Tsunade, please. For once in your life, just back me up on this."

Numb as the icey rain pounds down on her soaked body, dampened and chilled right to the bone, Tsunade looks between the two of them.

She has no interest in murdering three children. Enough people have died to her hands, hands that were built to save, not take, but have been kissed by the Reaper anyways, and she has no interest in dipping them in the blood of anybody right now, much less children.

But this crossroad is too familiar to her.

As much as she wants to pound Jiraiya in the throat most days, she doesn't want to lose him, too.

"I don't want to kill them. I think we can take them somewhere safer, rather than just leaving them out here," she says carefully. "But we can't take them as students."

Jiraiya's face sours and she knows immediately that she can't push this rock up the hill.

He waves them off, grumbling curses at them. He crouches in front of the kids, his back to her and Orochimaru, and somehow, Tsunade feels herself get even colder.

She could change her mind and agree to train the kids, stick it out with him. Maybe things would go differently. Her influence could be the thing that sways their destiny, keeps these three children from fitting the shoes of the Akatsuki, the people who will one day use those shoes to crush Konoha like a bug.

Tsunade feels herself step back, closer to Orochimaru.

She could.

With a shaking hand, she brushes her sopping wet hair out of her face.

If she wasn't so tired of trying to push that boulder up the hill, maybe she could give it a shot.

She and Orochimaru leave him there and in her gut, she knows that so long as she lives, she'll never see Jiraiya again.

.

.

Dan dies.

Tsunade buys flowers to put on his grave but in the end, she burns them, just like she burned that necklace.

.

.

"Come to stop me?"

"No."

Orochimaru raises a perfectly sculpted eyebrow. "Oh?"

"I don't know where you're going," she says, "but I'm coming with you."

"For what reason? I happen to be a disgraced Konoha-nin. I have done awful, terrible, nasty things—so I've been told, by our dear old sensei. You, my dear, are in perfectly good standing. Why throw your lot in with me?"

She shrugs. "What's left for me there?"

"Your duty?"

"What fucking good has that done me?"

Slowly, Orochimaru's lips curl up in a small, sly smile, and he extends his hand towards her. "If you insist."

.

.

Nobody is sent to stop them.

Separate, the two of them are forces to be reckoned with. Together? It'd take a kage to bring them down.

.

.

Tsunade is twenty-eight when she feels like she's grown too old for this world. Some might say she's at her peak. If she remembers correctly, this is the age that Tsunade froze herself at in the show—looks close enough.

It's a face that's seen too many years, though.

So, she becomes seventeen again. The face that greets her in the mirror is a version of herself that believed she could outlast this life.

Orochimaru laughs when he sees it and tells her that it suits her.

Unsure of how to take it, she simply nods, and they move on.

.

.

The time blurs together, after a while. They could have been on the move for weeks, months, or years, and she wouldn't be able to say one way or another. The monotony of it gets to her.

Wake up. Cover some distance. Eat. Cover some more distance. Eat again. Sleep.

Repeat.

Sometimes they take mercenary work or bodyguarding missions, and on those days there's a bit more variety to keep her on her toes.

When she's on one of these missions, the man they're guarding, a rich crime lord, offers to deal Tsunade into the card game they're playing, something that involves matching suits and a whole lot of money. She takes one look at the pile of money in the middle, the men sitting around the table and staring at her like she's a five year old at a carnival stepping up to those rigged sharp-shooter games, and shakes her head.

"Not much of a gambler. I always seem to lose, anyway, so I don't see the point."

.

.

"They're… a bunch of kids."

"Indeed," Orochimaru says. "Very powerful, very dangerous children. But children nonetheless."

Tsunade stares at the wall of their shared room in the Akatsuki hideout.

Of those gathered, she and Orochimaru are damn near the oldest, beaten out only by Kakuzu, not that she's sure he counts. Nagato and Konan are in their thirties, at least, as is Sasori. Which isn't young but she and Orochimaru both have twenty years on their lot so she can't find it in her to consider them old, either. Kisame is in his early twenties. Adult enough that Tsunade doesn't find it physically uncomfortable to be near him.

The worst though are Itachi and Deidara who are both _fetuses_. Hidan isn't that much older than them. A toddler, then. Obito is in his twenties but walks around with the mentality of a child so Tsunade's throwing him into this category.

She rubs a hand over the bridge of her nose.

What have they gotten themselves into?

.

.

She does her best to avoid them, for a while. These people aren't her friends—they're hardly colleagues. They're just convenient.

But it only works for so long.

.

.

An explosion rockets the door off Tsunade's room and fights off a sigh. It clatters to the stone floor, wisps of smoke curling up off of it. A couple of flames dance along the wood that are snuffed out when Deidara steps on top of it.

"What're you reading?"

Tsunade closes her eyes and counts back from ten. "Why did you blow the door off of my room?"

"Got bored. What ya reading?"

She flips the page of her book. "Orochmari would've killed you if you did that while he was here."

"Good thing he ain't."

"Yep."

Deidara barks out a laugh and saunters over to sit on her bed. He moves aside his cloak. From one of the pockets, he pulls out a little clay statue of her that is annoyingly accurate. "Like it?"

Tsunade stiffens. Warily, she eyes the statue. "Not really."

"Tch. Your loss."

And just like that he gets back up and wanders out of her room again, leaving the door on the floor.

Tsunade sighs and lets her head fall back against the stone wall.

.

.

"Again."

"No."

"I said, _again_."

And because he insists, Tsunade whips around and slams her heel into his jaw. Kisame is almost fast enough to dodge. Almost. But her foot clips the edge of his chin with enough force that she feels it crack under the force of her blow and sends Kisame stumbling back.

"How was that?" she asks.

"Fucking hell, kid," he mutters.

Tsunade scoffs. "I'm not a _kid_ , you dimwit," she says. "I'm old enough to be your fucking grandmother."

Kisame spits out a blood-stained tooth. His nod is appreciative, grudging, even as she sees the aggression blaze bright in his eyes.

Tsunade raises an eyebrow, her hands set on her hips. She waits, but he doesn't seem like he's going to take another go at her, so he heads back towards the door.

Kisame's cursing echoes in her ears and for some reason, she stops.

She should leave. They've sparred, which was why he asked her out here in the first place, and that's it. There's nothing else she needs to do here. But she can't get the sound of his swearing out of her mind and she can hear the pained groan as he tries to follow her out.

And that's not any of her concern. It's not.

But…

For some awful, stupid reason, the image of Nawaki wandering around with a broken jaw flashes through her mind. He would have been about Kisame's age by now if he had lived.

Tsunade sighs and turns back to face him, her hand outstretched. "Want me to heal that?"

Kisame grunts. "Don't need your help," he says, the words mangled as he barely opens his mouth to say them.

"You'd seriously rather walk around with a broken jaw 'cause of that?"

He stops and eyes her. She leaves her hand there.

Finally, he rolls his eyes and nods. It takes her a few minutes but she gets his jaw mostly in working order again, barely a hit to her chakra stores to show for it.

"Huh." Kisame touches the joins, curious, and seems satisfied with what he finds. "Thanks."

Tsunade nods and walks away, washing the encounter from her mind.

.

.

"What was he like?"

Konan blinks, her fingers freezing. "Pardon?"

Tsunade doesn't know why the words left her lips. She stares down at her cup of tea, a few feet away from Konan in the communal eating area. She takes a deep breath.

"There were three of you," Tsunade says. "The third one's gone. What was he like?"

Konan tilts her head and watches Tsunade through difficult to decipher eyes. She goes back to working on her origami. Tsunade goes to get up, figuring she isn't going to get an answer, but she stills when Konan softly says, "A lot like Jiraiya."

"Yeah?"

"Yes. Loud and off-kilter. But… his dreams were so big. He knew what he wanted, and how he needed to get it—for himself and everybody else." Konan looks down at her hands and smiles. "Right up until the end."

Tsunade nods. "When?"

"He was killed a few years ago. Pain took over in his absence."

For a brief second, Tsunade is thrown back so long ago, years and years, to the day Dan died. She sees herself reflected in Konan's posture, the way her breathing picks up and her eyes fall closed, to open again not with unshed tears but a gaze that could cut steel.

Numbly, Tsunade says, "And now you two are going to get his dream for him."

"With your help. You and everybody else."

She feels herself get up and this time, instead of doing so with the intent to flee, she feels herself take a few slow steps towards Konan. Before she can think about it, her hand is draped over the crook of Konan's elbow, her other still holding the steaming cup of tea. To her surprise, Konan lightly covers it with a hand of her own before going back to her origami.

It's difficult to pin down the instincts that carried Tsunade here.

Nothing like that of somebody going to help an injured comrade, nor that of a friend providing support in the eye of the storm. There's something else, there. Something weirder.

Maternal? Sisterly?

Tsunade shakes the thoughts off and lets her hand drop.

.

.

Tsunade stares at Hidan, covered in the blood of some poor fuck after coming home from his mission, his grin sharp and manic, and realizes that there are some in this organization that she'll never want to associate too closely with.

.

.

She hears Kakuzu remark about how nothing can be depended on but money and finds that while she can understand the sentiment, there are some cranky fucks she _definitely_ doesn't want to associate with.

.

.

Tsunade can't make up her mind about Sasori. She blames the young face for this.

There is terrifying cruelty that exists inside of him, cold and uncaring, aloof, his soul something untouchable, a moon hung in the sky surrounded by black and pouring down rays of ice on any who come near him. But he looks like a _child_. Cherub cheeks and a quirky smile accompany dead eyes.

She sees him in the common area one day, fiddling with some puppet parts.

"What are you working on?" she asks.

He blinks, turning his placid gaze in her direction. "I pulled out the heart and organs of a man I killed yesterday," he says. "I'm testing out internal organs in puppets to see if that affects chakra distribution."

"Interesting."

With a stone face, she turns on her heel and walks away.

On another, she watches him win a game of cards and take in the combined force of Deidara and Hidan cursing him out with nothing but a smile.

And yet another day, he walks through the housing building with three corpses hoisted on his shoulder, unbothered as Kisame yells at him for tracking blood through the hallways _again_.

She should be turned off by him; in his way, he's as bad as Hidan and Kakuzu, as awful and messed up and ugly.

But she can't.

How could she hate a child?

(̶S̶h̶e̶ ̶k̶n̶o̶w̶s̶ ̶h̶e̶'̶s̶ ̶a̶ ̶f̶u̶l̶l̶ ̶g̶r̶o̶w̶n̶ ̶a̶d̶u̶l̶t̶,̶ ̶t̶h̶a̶t̶ ̶a̶ ̶c̶r̶u̶e̶l̶ ̶m̶a̶n̶ ̶e̶x̶i̶s̶t̶s̶ ̶b̶e̶n̶e̶a̶t̶h̶ ̶t̶h̶a̶t̶ ̶m̶a̶s̶k̶,̶ ̶b̶u̶t̶ ̶s̶h̶e̶ ̶c̶a̶n̶'̶t̶ ̶g̶e̶t̶ ̶h̶e̶r̶ ̶h̶e̶a̶r̶t̶ ̶t̶o̶ ̶u̶n̶d̶e̶r̶s̶t̶a̶n̶d̶ ̶w̶h̶a̶t̶ ̶h̶e̶r̶ ̶e̶y̶e̶s̶ ̶s̶e̶e̶.̶ ̶S̶h̶e̶ ̶w̶a̶n̶t̶s̶ ̶t̶o̶.̶ ̶S̶h̶e̶ ̶s̶h̶o̶u̶l̶d̶.̶ ̶B̶u̶t̶ ̶s̶h̶e̶ ̶c̶a̶n̶'̶t̶,̶ ̶s̶h̶e̶ ̶j̶u̶s̶t̶ ̶c̶a̶n̶'̶t̶,̶ ̶a̶n̶d̶ ̶a̶f̶t̶e̶r̶ ̶a̶ ̶p̶o̶i̶n̶t̶,̶ ̶s̶h̶e̶ ̶c̶o̶m̶e̶s̶ ̶t̶o̶ ̶a̶c̶c̶e̶p̶t̶ ̶t̶h̶a̶t̶.̶)̶

.

.

"Where did you get cookies?"

Itachi looks at her, a cookie dangling out of his mouth, and simply offers the box to her.

Tsunade takes it with a raised eyebrow. "Have you eaten any normal food today?"

He swallows the cookie. "No."

"You should," she says. "You're old enough to still be growing—you need proper nutrients."

Itachi pulls out another cookie. He holds it in front of his mouth, watching her, then shoves it into his mouth. He chews on it thoughtfully. Tsunade waits him out, her cookie still held in her hand.

"I forget how old you are, sometimes," is his soft reply, after he's finished chewing.

"That's the point."

He hums.

Knowing he won't do it for himself, Tsunade steps around him and pulls out the rice maker, determined to have _something_ nutritious for him. He and Deidara both are still young enough to be growing. She might not have gotten to study healing and biology as long as she would have liked, but that much is still clear in her head.

"What are you doing?"

Tsunade freezes.

What _is_ she doing?

Then she sighs and heads over to the fridge.

She can't even lie to herself, at this point—she knows exactly what she's doing. Trying to play it like it surprises her is a farce, especially with Itachi.

She knows his story. She knows what was done to him.

He was barely a year older than Nawaki had been when it happened.

Itachi hides it well, but that ache, that pain, it sits in his eyes like algae on the sides of a fish tank. She sees it every time he looks at her, despite how calm his outer appearance is otherwise. What happened to him embodies everything Tsunade hates about Konoha: that in the end, it's no better than any other village, just as willing to throw innocent children to slaughter in the name of the "greater good" and all that shit.

Fuck knows all the good that did for Nawaki. For Dan. For _her_.

"Nutrition is important," Tsunade says. "You've still got a year or two of growing. If you just eat cookies it'll never happen."

A year or two of growing and a life-threatening disease for his body to combat. That his body can't fight through. Will never be able to fight through. But she isn't supposed to know that, doubts she can do anything about that, so she swallows that one up and tosses it to the back of her mind.

Tsunade looks over her shoulder and sees Itachi watching her with a ghost of a smile on his face, barely noticeable in the way the lines around his mouth shift and his gaze softens.

"Ah. Thank you."

"Yeah, sure."

.

.

"Look!"

Tsunade turns her gaze up from her book to Deidara.

He has a statue held between his hands, made up of the same exploding clay all of his works are. She has no idea what it's supposed to be; it looks like a blob of clay. Mushed together, with a glob pulled out on one end and another stretched out along the top.

But Tsunade humours him. "Pretty cool. Very unique."

He grins and shoots her a thumbs up.

Satisfied, he turns and heads back out of the room again, slamming the door shut behind him. Tsunade puts her book down. In her head, she counts back from five.

The door explodes on zero.

With practiced ease, Tsunade gets up and stands the thing back up in its frame, then goes back to her reading.

.

.

Tsunade nods appreciatively from the ground, spitting out a gob of blood onto the concrete training floor beside her. "Nice. That was good form."

Kisame smirks down at her. He extends his hand and Tsunade takes it.

"Thanks," he says, "but you and I both know you let that hit you."

"Do we?"

"Come on, granny. I'm good but I'm not _that_ good."

Tsunade snorts, feeling as the damage in her mouth heals itself. The pain along her jaw lessens, and she watches as one on her upper arm shifts from yellow to a muddy brown to dark purple, then fades back into the fresh, clean skin.

"See, but that?" Kisame jabs a finger at her face. "I wanna learn that."

"I bet you fucking do," she says.

"Is that a 'yes'?"

"That's a 'never in your life.' Now, come on—try and knock this granny on her ass again, yeah?"

.

.

"Itachi?"

He didn't jump, no self-respecting ninja ever does, but she saw the telltale abruptness in the way his gaze flew over to her that spoke of surprise. She paused, letting him make his evaluations before she got closer.

She considers it a miracle that he doesn't immediately try and hide the photograph in his hands.

Even though she can't see it in the dark, she can guess who it's of.

Tsunade slides through the open door and closes it behind her. She leaves the lights off. Slowly, she gets near the bed, and Itachi watches her with that same inscrutable expression but makes no move to stop her.

She settles down beside him. The face of a little boy, no older than five, stares up at her from the photograph gripped in Itachi's hands. "Little brother?"

"Yes," Itachi says stiffly.

"Miss him?"

There's a pause.

"Yes."

Tsunade nods. "Yeah. I miss my little brother, too."

"You… have a brother?"

"Had," she says. "I'm sure he didn't get mentioned much after his death—he died too young to be strong, so he never did anything 'notable' for the village. Doesn't leave them much to talk about."

"Oh." Itachi's eyebrows knit together. "How… old was he if I can ask?"

"He died the day after his twelfth birthday. He would have been in his thirties by now if he was still alive."

"Ah," Itachi says. It's soft but there's a spark of emotion in there, something she doesn't hear often from Itachi. "I'm sorry."

Tsunade taps the photograph and says, "Me too."

She pats him on the shoulder. He stiffens but doesn't pull away.

She'll take it.

Not wanting to intrude further, she gets up and heads out, leaving the lights off and the door shut behind her once again.

.

.

A box of cookies finds its way into Itachi's room the next time she comes back from a mission.

.

.

"You're leaving."

Orochimaru watches her, one hand settled on his hip.

The breeze washes over Tsunade, carrying in it droplets of water that hit her cheeks like icicles. But she barely feels it.

"Yes," Orochimaru says. "I am."

"Why?"

"It is no longer in my best interest to remain here," he says. He tilts his head. "If you wish to join me, you are welcome. You have never been a hindrance."

And there's a part of her that jumps at the thought to follow the one person who's been in her life the longest. The last person to leave her behind. Because once he does, she'll be able to say once and for all that she has nothing of Tsunade Senju left. No part of her history, no tendrils of her life wrapped around her soul like a tattered scarf.

He's the last thread.

Tsunade looks over her shoulder at the headquarters, the place they've been for years now, and she finds that there's contention.

It's not perfect, nor is it forever. She knows that life has an expiration date, and a soon one, at that. Tobi is a ticking time bomb whose explosion she hasn't bothered trying to prevent.

Though, Orochimaru is no more promising, at this point. His end looms nearer.

But…

She shakes her head, the words, "I can't" leaving her lips.

With the barest hint of what Tsunade knows is disappointment, Orochimaru says, "Very well."

And with that, he disappears in a blur of motion, leaving nothing but sleet and ache in his wake.

Tsunade takes a deep breath. She centres herself. And then she turns around and heads back into the building, knowing that if she's resigning herself to a doomed fate, at least this time, she'll go out with people of her choosing.


End file.
